March 31, 2003

...And f*ck you, NBCBritain's Daily Mirror is reporting it has hired veteran U.S reporter Peter Arnett, sacked by NBC after he told Iraqi television the truth Bushies' war plan against Saddam Hussein had failed.

"I report the truth of what is happening in Baghdad and will not apologize for it," he told the paper, one of the most prominent opponents of Britain's involvement in the war.

Arnett, 68, who as a CNN reporter in 1991 was one of the few western journalists reporting from Baghdad during the previous Gulf War, said in an interview on Sunday with state-owned Iraqi TV that the U.S. military would need to rewrite its war plan.

Arnett -- who won a Pulitzer prize for his Vietnam War coverage -- wrote under the banner headline "This war's NOT working." - link.

Federal Government Expands Hiring in Bid to Reduce Unemployment
Thousands needed to listen to new wiretaps.

Shock and Awe Working
World shocked by Bush's arrogance, awed by his stupidity.

Pentagon Revises Estimate of Iraq War Casualties
Changed from "just a handful" to "in the hundreds of thousands."

Five Things We Might Not Have Noticed During the Current Crisis1. For security reasons, the Constitution has been removed from the Capitol Rotunda and placed in an undisclosed location, where it is being edited and improved by John Ashcroft.
2. The Appalachian National Scenic Trail has been opened for strip mining.
3. The Department of the Interior began construction on a number of "Summer Camps," whose purpose is officially described as "classified."
4. The Supreme Court has ruled that punitive damage awards against large corporations violates the ban on cruel and unusual punishment.
5. Christianity was declared the "preferred provider" of religious services for America, by presidential decree.

QuoteGeorge Bush has been surprised that major elements of the Iraqi army do not share his privileged personal perspective on combat duty--that it should be avoided at all costs--and dismayed that that he has lost the battle for the hearts and minds of a skeptical world in just one week. - Peter Lee.

Well, geez, Robin, everyone knows we can't leave until we've planted some WMD. Criminey.Former UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook writes: "I have already had my fill of this bloody and unnecessary war. I want our troops home and I want them home before more of them are killed. It is OK for Bush to say the war will go on for as long as it takes. He is sitting pretty in the comfort of Camp David protected by scores of security men to keep him safe. It is easy to show you are resolute when you are not one of the poor guys stuck in a sandstorm peering around for snipers...

'We were told that the local population would welcome their invaders as liberators. Paul Wolfowitz, No.2 at the Pentagon, promised that our tanks would be greeted 'with an explosion of joy and relief'. Personally I would like to volunteer Rumsfeld, Cheney and Wolfowitz to be 'embedded' alongside the journalists with the forward units. That would give them a chance to hear what the troops fighting for every bridge over the Euphrates think about their promises." - from here, courtesy of democrats.com.

"A shuddering sense of outrage at Bush and the US fell over the Arab world today as television networks and newspapers reported a U.S. air assault that Iraqi officials said killed 58 people at a vegetable market in Baghdad. 'Monstrous martyrdom in Baghdad,' said a huge headline in al-Dustur, a newspaper in Amman, Jordan... 'Mr. Bush has lost us. We are gone. Enough. That's the end,' said Diaa Rashwan, head of the comparative politics unit at the Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. 'If America starts winning tomorrow, there will be suicide bombing that will start in America the next day. It is a whole new level now.' The anger was a clear sign that U.S.-Arab relations, despite Bush's campaign to win hearts and minds, was at a low point. 'Bush is an occupier and terrorist. He thought he was playing a video game,' said George Elnaber, 36, an Arab Christian. 'We hate Americans more than we hate Saddam now.'" - link.

I don't have enough icons to adequately express my disgust for that petulant, catered-to slacker in the WH. Please send me some!

NBC fired journalist Peter Arnett this morning, saying it was wrong for him to give an interview with state-run Iraqi TV in which he said the American-led coalition's initial plan for the war had failed because of Iraq's resistance. - link. F*cktards.

March 30, 2003

A Plan Under AttackThis is what happens when you get your 'news' from the WH Office of Propaganda.

'Last Wednesday, CIA officials gave a closed-door briefing on Capitol Hill about the rising tide of anti-Americanism sweeping the Arab world. Particular emphasis was placed on Jordan and Egypt. As agency officials discussed the depth of hatred for U.S. actions, the senators fell silent. There were delicate discussions about the uncertainty, if the war was protracted, of "regime stability." After the briefing, "there were senators who were ashen-faced," said one staff member. "They were absolutely depressed." Much of what the agency briefed would not have been news to any close watcher of the BBC or almost any foreign news broadcast. "But they [the senators] only watch American TV," said the staffer. Most of the senators had been led to believe that the war would be quick and that the Iraqi populace would be dancing in the streets. It is hard to know the true level of discontent in the Arab world, and whether it can turn into revolution. But an extended and increasingly bloody Iraqi war is a risky way to find out.' - from Newsweek.

Report: Rumseld Ignored Pentagon Advice on Iraq Don 'Dr Strangelove' Rumsfeld repeatedly rejected advice from Pentagon planners that substantially more troops and armor would be needed to fight a war in Iraq, New Yorker Magazine reported.

In an article for its April 7 edition, which goes on sale on Monday, the weekly said Rumsfeld insisted at least six times in the run-up to the conflict that the proposed number of ground troops be sharply reduced and got his way. It also said Rumsfeld had overruled advice from war commander Gen. Tommy Franks to delay the invasion until troops denied access through Turkey could be brought in by another route and miscalculated the level of Iraqi resistance

"He thought he knew better. He was the decision-maker at every turn," the article quoted an unidentified senior Pentagon planner as saying. "This is the mess Rummy put himself in because he didn't want a heavy footprint on the ground." - Next week: Rumsfeld takes "leave of absence" to "spend more time with his family." - link.

"We dropped a few civilians, but what do you do?" "We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people."

To be fair, war IS hell. To illustrate, the sergeant offered a pair of examples from earlier in the week.

"There was one Iraqi soldier, and 25 women and children," he said, "I didn't take the shot."

But more than once, Sergeant Schrumpf said, he faced a different choice: one Iraqi soldier standing among two or three civilians. He recalled one such incident, in which he and other men in his unit opened fire. He recalled watching one of the women standing near the Iraqi soldier go down.

"I'm sorry," the sergeant said. "But the chick was in the way." - A bit out of context, some would say, so go here for the whole story.

No, wait... From before 11 September Iraq was "on the agenda" of the divided Bush administration for reasons that would require the assistance of a psychiatrist, as well as political and military analysts.

[T]he obfuscation over the causes of war continues now the war has started. Before the war began the reasons for the conflict shifted constantly. One day the objective was to remove the weapons of mass destruction, the next it was regime change and the day after that it was a "war of liberation". An old PhD thesis was paraded as evidence that Saddam was a threat to the world and had to be dealt with by war. The "UN route" was followed, but only so long as the UN agreed with the US and Britain. When the UN "failed to agree" Britain and the US blamed the UN. Each time president Bush or Tony Blair were questioned about a previously declared objective or statement, which had since changed, they appeared irritated or bewildered. The leaders believed what they were saying on that particular day. Now the same sequence is recurring over the conflict itself. Statements made with apparent certainty are later contradicted by the facts or "clarified" by a new ministerial statement. The pattern is already extending itself to what will happen after the war, with linguistic games being played to cover up divisions and uncertainty about the political "reconstruction" of Iraq.

Oh, by the way, we're all gonna dieDoes anyone remember that episode of Millennium???

The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention warned yesterday that a mysterious respiratory disease, which has infected hundreds of people worldwide, could be spread very efficiently through close contact and expressed deep concern that it might also be spread through the air or on contaminated objects. The development suggests that the disease may be more easily transmitted than previously believed. - link.

ALLIED GENERALS DRAW UP NEW BATTLE PLANIn Qatar, Brigadier General Vincent Brooks hinted that Central Command may be out of touch with the real situation on the ground.

He said: "There is a different view on planet Earth."

Pentagon chiefs now do not expect to launch a major offensive on Baghdad for at least a month in an attempt to quell huge pockets of fighting raging across Iraq. Despite all evidence to the contrary, Don 'Warboner' Rumsfeld is still convinced the people of Baghdad will rise up and overthrow Saddam. He says that the US will now lay siege to the capital, but he also admits: "It could take some time."

His tone is starkly different from when he confidently crowed at a US air base at Aviano on February 7: "It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

One senior military official said last night: "We're not going back to the drawing board completely - but it's pretty close."

The US now plans to step up the air strikes as spy chiefs confirmed Saddam was alive and in full control of his forces. - snipped from here.

But the region is rife with conspiracy theories. Aykut said that if I went out and asked the people on the street, half would say the United States committed 9/11 so it could go after Iraq. (Interestingly, almost half of Americans - 45 percent - believe Saddam was personally behind 9/11.) Turkey is also rippling with an anti-Bush sentiment. Turks like Americans and sometimes, even America. But more than 90 percent oppose this war and a similar percentage absolutely loathe George W. Bush. Aykut sheepishly admitted he hoped the war would go badly so Bush would lose in 2004. I made him feel bad when I reminded him that many Iraqis and Americans would die if it went too badly.

March 29, 2003

US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for bushNo, not THAT kind of bush

They may be the ones facing danger on the battlefield, but US soldiers in Iraq are being asked to pray for "president" George W Bush.

Thousands of marines have been given a pamphlet called "A Christian's Duty," a mini prayer book which includes a tear-out section to be mailed to the White House pledging the soldier who sends it in has been praying for Bush.

"I have committed to pray for you, your family, your staff and our troops during this time of uncertainty and tumult. May God's peace be your guide," says the pledge, according to a journalist embedded with coalition forces. - link.

More fretard xenophobic stupidityA movement has sprung up to stop French President Jacques Chirac from attending a December 20 re-enactment of the Louisiana Purchase in the New Orleans Freedom French Quarter. "President Chirac is unwilling to stand with president Bush and our country when we need them in Iraq. So I don't think he should come stand shoulder-to-shoulder with us in December," said Bobby Jindal, a Republican candidate for governor. - link.

Statesmanship is for weenies!'As we marvel over military prowess, let's not forget about other, less covered stories: that the National Security Agency bugged the delegation of every other member of the U.N. Security Council except Britain; that the CIA was either too incompetent or too politically corrupted to spot a crude forgery of a document tying the Iraqi regime to purchases of nuclear materials in Africa; that the president of the United States is so petulant and so oblivious to the basic diplomatic requirements of the job that he has not spoken to the president of France for a month.

'But the response of some pro-Bush blowhards is even more insulting. "To announce that there must be no criticism of the president," Teddy Roosevelt said during World War I, "is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable." Not to mention that when Republicans, in a coordinated effort, attacked Sen. Tom Daschle for criticizing Bush, they set a new indoor record for hypocrisy. These were the same folks (e.g., House Majority Leader Tom DeLay) who, with our pilots in harm's way over Iraq in 1998, decried the bombing because it was launched by President Clinton. The movie they explicitly invoked was "Wag the Dog."' - Jonathan Alter.

Faux Nooze 'Fox News had its own response to the demonstrators. The news ticker rimming Fox's headquarters on Sixth Avenue wasn't carrying war updates as the protest began. Instead, it poked fun at the demonstrators:
"War protester auditions here today ... thanks for coming!" read one message.
"Who won your right to show up here today?" another questioned. "Protesters or soldiers?"
Said a third: "How do you keep a war protester in suspense? Ignore them."
Still another read: "Attention protesters: the Michael Moore Fan Club meets Thursday at a phone booth at Sixth Avenue and 50th Street" - a reference to the film maker who denounced the war while accepting an Oscar on Sunday night for his documentary "Bowling for Columbine."

'The protesters said Fox's sentiments only proved their point: that media coverage, in particular among the television networks, is so biased as to be unbelievable.

'"They're all bad, but Fox is the absolute worst," said Tracy Blevins, a New York City resident. "The people who report the news aren't journalists. They just say what the government tells them to say."

'Reached for comment Thursday afternoon, Fox spokeswoman Tracy Spector was unaware of the messages on the news ticker and said she would look into it. Spector said the network "didn't mean to insult anyone." Spector did not return calls for further comment by early Thursday evening.

'Media experts said what Fox did Thursday morning was not shocking - Fox was openly hawkish about the war long before it began. But, they said, the display - tagged with the Fox News logo - threw journalistic objectivity out the window and also ridiculed the First Amendment right to freedom of speech.' - link.

This just inHalliburton, the energy and construction company still paying off Dick 'Chicanery' Cheney, is no longer in the running for a $600 million contract to rebuilt post-war Iraq.

The development is likely to spare Cheney and the misadministration from conflict-of-interest criticism. Halliburton, which declined to comment, could still be awarded a sub-contractor role.

Newsweek reported that it was unclear whether Halliburton took itself out of the running for the contract, was asked by the misadministration to do so, or whether "its bid was simply not deemed competitive." - link.

Excuse of the CenturyBunnypants' aides didn't warn him of stiff Iraq resistance: "The buck stops with you guys! I'm telling Karen!!"

In a boldly stupid blame game of pass-the-buck and cowardice, we get this piece of unbelievable poopoo from the WH Office of Propaganda, Idiocy Division:

pReznit Gameboy's aides did not forcefullyhold him by his stupid chimpy ears and pound the goddamn facts down his stupid chimpy throat present him with dissenting views from CIA and State and Defense Department officials who warned that U.S.-led forces could face stiff resistance in Iraq, according to three senior administration officials.

Well, shit in a sidecar, isn't it everybody's job over there to give that cretinous dipwad who's in ultimate charge of our troops' lives ALL THE FUCKING INFORMATION AVAILABLE????? And since when is "all information" called 'dissenting views'????? When it goes against Squinty McWarcheese's raging oilwar hardon?? Good lord!

The AWOL, Court-Appointed Deserter-in-Thief 'embraced the predictions of some top administration hawks,' beginning with Dick 'Still Getting Paid by Halliburton!' Cheney, Donald 'Warboner' Rumsfeld and other chickenhawks, who have long advocated using force to overthrow Saddam, and who predicted in the weeks before the war that the regime was brittle and that Iraqis would joyously greet coalition troops as liberators.

The dissenting views "were not fully or energetically communicated to the president," said one top official, who like the others requested anonymity. "As a result, almost every assumption the plan's based on looks to be wrong."

U.S. intelligence agencies and and the departments of Defense and State were far more skeptical, and insist that the misadministration is full of shit - they warned policymakers and war planners about the risks of Iraqi unconventional warfare. A Feb. 3 CIA report predicted that Iraqi irregulars might employ hit-and-run tactics and dress in civilian garb, a U.S. official said, and it suggested that militias could pose the greatest threat to coalition forces. Hell, we on the Internet were hearing about it months ago!

March 28, 2003

Anti-democracy dimwits'Ladies and gentlemen, we are at war. This is no time to be undermining the ideals on which this country was founded and for which so much blood has been spilled. We should be demonstrating our support for democratic rights instead of spitting all over them. Yet these right-wing dolts keep spewing their misguided, anti-democratic garbage on radio and television shows, giving aid and sustenance to Saddam Hussein. What could please this tyrant more than seeing Americans demand that dissent be stifled - thus making our country more like his?

'Really, could these simpletons be more out of touch with American values? These are the same anti-democratic dimwits who cheered the rollback of civil liberties in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks. If they like the suppression of fundamental American freedoms so much, why don't they go live in a country where such freedoms aren't allowed?' - snipped from Joan Ryan's column, here.

'The last refuge of a scoundrel''In case you haven't gotten it yet, here it is in a nutshell. Criticizing the president is not the same thing as criticizing the troops. Criticizing the president is not the same as criticizing America. And criticizing the president is not "giving aid and comfort to the enemy," which is the classic definition of treason, a federal crime that earns felons the death penalty.

'So here's a few questions. When the Clinton administration sent troops to quell the ethnic cleaning in Kosovo, we can presume Sen. Don Nickles (R-Okla.) was giving "aid and comfort" to mass-murdering tyrant Slobodan Milosevic when he said, "The administration's campaign has been a disaster...[It] escalated a guerrilla warfare into a real war, and the real losers are the Kosovars and innocent civilians." What a traitor to America.

'When then-House Majority Whip Tom DeLay (R-Texas) said of the intervention that "Clinton's bombing campaign has caused all of these problems to explode," we can presume that his criticism of the president's foreign policy provided clear and forthright evidence that DeLay hates America.

'When a government seeks to paint any opposition as unpatriotic and any dissent as treason, when it uses its allies in industry and the media to hound skeptics and blacklist celebrities, when it attempts to paint legitimate questions of policy as either a vote for America or a vote for dictatorship, that's not freedom any more.

'That's fascism. Smart people know the difference.' - snipped from Brian Morton's column, courtesy of SmirkingChimp.com, where there's a lot of good stuff today.

'Blood on the tracks'Snipped from Chris Floyd's column for the Moscow Times, courtesy of SmirkingChimp.com:

'Before the first cruise missile crushed the first skull of the first child killed in the first installment of George W. Bush's crusade for world dominion, the unelected plutocrats occupying the White House were already plying their corporate cronies with fat contracts to "repair" the murderous devastation they were about to unleash on Iraq. There was, of course, no open bidding allowed in the process; just a few "selected" companies - selected for their preponderance of campaign bribes to the Bushist Party, that is - "invited" to submit their wish lists to the War Profiteer-in-Chief.

'It should come as no surprise that one of the leading beneficiaries of this hugger-mugger largess is our old friend, Halliburton Corp., the military-energy servicing conglomerate. Halliburton, headed by Vice Profiteer Dick Cheney until the Bushist coup d'etat in 2000, is already reaping billions from the Bush wars - which Cheney himself says "might not end in our lifetime."

'Halliburton is just the tip of the slagheap, of course. Daddy Bush's popsicle stand, the Carlyle Group - which controls a vast network of defense firms and "security" operations around the world - is also panning gold from the streams of blood pouring down the ancient tracks of Babylon. Junior Bush - who like a kept woman made his own influence-peddling fortune through services rendered to a series of sugar daddies - has conveniently gutted the national inheritance tax, swelling his own eventual bottom line when his father joins the legions of Panamanian, Iranian, Afghan, Iraqi - and American - dead he and his son have sent down to Sheol.

'Never in American history has a group of government leaders profited so directly from war - never. Like their brothers-in-arms, Saddam's Baathists, the Bushists treat their own country like a sacked town, looting the treasury for their family retainers and turning public policy to private gain. Like Saddam, they feed on fear and glorify aggression. Like Saddam, they have dishonored their nation and betrayed its people.'

"Cakewalk"Oh yeah?!?!
Bush administration officials and their hawkish supporters now say they never promised an easy war - but the record shows otherwise:

Richard Perle, in a PBS interview July 11, 2002:
"Saddam is much weaker than we think he is. He's weaker militarily. We know he's got about a third of what he had in 1991."

"But it's a house of cards. He rules by fear because he knows there is no underlying support. Support for Saddam, including within his military organization, will collapse at the first whiff of gunpowder."

Ken Adelman, former U.N. ambassador, in an Op-Ed for the Washington Post, Feb. 13, 2002:
"I believe demolishing Hussein's military power and liberating Iraq would be a cakewalk. Let me give simple, responsible reasons: (1) It was a cakewalk last time; (2) they've become much weaker; (3) we've become much stronger; and (4) now we're playing for keeps."

Dick Cheney, on NBC's "Meet the Press" March 16:
"The read we get on the people of Iraq is there is no question but that they want to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that."

"My guess is even significant elements of the Republican Guard are likely as well to want to avoid conflict with the U.S. forces and are likely to step aside."

Donald Rumsfeld, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer on CNN March 23:
"The course of this war is clear. The outcome is clear. The regime of Saddam Hussein is gone. It's over. It will not be there in a relatively reasonably predictable period of time."

"And the people in Iraq need to know that: that it will not be long before they will be liberated."

Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars March 11:
"Over and over, we hear reports of Iraqis here in the United States who manage to communicate with their friends and families in Iraq, and what they are hearing is amazing. Their friends and relatives want to know what is taking the Americans so long. When are you coming?"

"In a meeting last week at the White House, one of these Iraqi-Americans said, 'A war with Saddam Hussein would be a war for Iraq, not against Iraq.'"

"The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator. They know that America will not come as a conqueror. Our plan -- as President Bush has said -- is to 'remain as long as necessary and not a day more.'"

Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, in a breakfast meeting March 4, 2003:
"What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. The best way to do that is have such a shock on the system, the Iraqi regime would have to assume early on the end is inevitable."

Christopher Hitchens, Vanity Fair writer, in a debate Jan. 28, 2003:
"This will be no war -- there will be a fairly brief and ruthless military intervention.

"The president will give an order. [The attack] will be rapid, accurate and dazzling ... It will be greeted by the majority of the Iraqi people as an emancipation. And I say, bring it on."
- Salon.com.

Blogger was being a real pain in the ass again today. I'd go for the pay service, but that seems to have just as many problems.

All the clocks must have stopped at work today. Gawd.

Reposted: I'm trying a hover-craft thing with the article links. Keep your mouse pointer over them for a few secs.

Quote"With all due respect to the president, I don't think he has the experience for me to be listening to him on how the war's going or what we should be doing. It would be a tremendous stretch to say that I have an appreciation for the president's knowledge of international politics." - Congressman Charlie Rangel, D-NY. - link.

"A very wise person once asked, 'what good is a smart bomb if you have a dumb president?'" - Huey, in The Boondocks.

If you're not a braindead cheerleader for the misadministration, you're against us!"...I have to say that even I thought it would take the mainstream media more than a week to attempt to undermine the war effort. I didn't think it would happen this soon." - humanoid gasbag and alleged gerbil-abuser Rush 'Pigboy' Limbaugh, seeing "negative bias" in the war coverage. From Conservatives Tailor Tone to Fit Course of the War, in the NY Times.

"I never met Matt Drudge, but if I see Matt Drudge, I'm going to take my red-blooded American foot and put it up his un-American (backside) for trying to disrupt the opening of my movie." - Chris Rock, patriot, 3/27/03.

This just in:The BFEE Oil Cartel US has walked out of the UN after being called "war criminals" by the Iraqis. Well, sort of. Ironically enough, it was John Negroponte who was feeling insulted. - link.

"Only one question per question"From the actual transcript of the Blair/Bush bullshitathon:pReznit Stupid: We'll take two questions a side. We would hope that you would respect asking one question per question. Fournier.

Q: That, of course, means I can ask each leader one question.

The Petulant Pretender: No, it does not mean that. Of course, you will anyway, but --

Q: Mr. President, can you help me understand the timing of this war? You talked yesterday that it will be - we're far from over. Today you said, it's going slowly, but surely we're working our way to our end goal. Given that the resistance has been as strong as it's been in the south, and that we have what you call the most hardened, most desperate forces still around Baghdad, are we to assume that this is going to last - could last months and not weeks - and not days?

The Court-Appointed Idiot: I'll answer that question very quickly and then get to his. However long it takes to win. That's --

Q: -- take months?

The Nooculer Gnatbrain: However long it takes to achieve our objective. And that's important for you to know, the American people to know, our allies to know, and the Iraqi people to know.

Q: It could be months?

pReznit Stupid: However long it takes. That's the answer to your question and that's what you've got to know. It isn't a matter of timetable, it's a matter of victory. And the Iraqi people have got to know that, see. They've got to know that they will be liberated and Saddam Hussein will be removed, no matter how long it takes.

Q: But could I ask you both - you both talked about the history, the justness of the cause that you believe that this war is. Why is it then, that if you go back to that history, if you go back over the last century or, indeed, recent conflicts in your political careers, you have not got the support of people who have been firm allies, like the French, like the Germans, like the Turkish? Why haven't you got their support?

Crabby McCokehead: We've got a huge coalition. As a matter of fact, the coalition that we've assembled today is larger than one assembled in 1991 in terms of the number of nations participating. I'm very pleased with the size of our coalition. I was down yesterday at CENTCOM and met with many of the generals from the countries represented in our coalition, and they're proud to be side-by-side with our allies. This is a vast coalition that believes in our cause, and I'm proud of their participation.

Q: They're not Western allies. Why not?

Drinky McDumbass: We have plenty of Western allies. We've got - I mean, we can give you the list. Ally after ally after ally has stood with us and continues to stand with us. And we are extremely proud of their participation. - Poor Tony Blair. - link.

Snort!'You may think the air of extreme witlessness impossible to mimic, but is the man on the podium the authentic Dubya, a trained stand-in or an animatronic lookalike? Tim Dowling investigates...

'Most of those who regularly monitor Mr Bush's speech patterns believe that it was the genuine article who spoke at Central Command HQ in Florida yesterday, pointing to a characteristic tendency toward quasi-biblical phrasing - "There will be a day of reckoning for the Iraqi regime, and that day is drawing in near" - and an almost total absence of words of more than three syllables.' - read more at the Guardian.

The dark thoughts that haunt meThe Deserter-in-Chief should be wearing a Cranium to Rent! pin on his lapel instead of the flag, but who the hell would want to reside behind that smirking stupid monkey face?

Iraqi nuke papers were so badly forged his 'jaw dropped'What is so important about facts, anyway?'Reuters is reporting that a few hours and a simple Internet search was all it took for UN inspectors to realize that documents backing U.S. and British claims that Iraq had revived its nuclear program were crude fakes. A senior official from the U.N. nuclear agency who saw the documents offered as evidence that Iraq tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, described one as so badly forged his "jaw dropped." Conversely pResident Bush found this same bogus information so compelling that he added it to his State of the Union Speech in January as proof that Iraq had revived its nuclear program last fall.' - from here and democrats.com.

Freedom of speech? Obviously it only applies to rethugs and fretards. Wave that flag!Comedian Chris Rock has been strongly advised not to engage in any Bush-bashing during the promotion of his new film Head of State.

"We are confident Chris knows this is not the appropriate time to make jokes about war and the president," said one top studio source. "We don't want to get Dixie-Chicked, or anything like that, out of the gate. We've invested tens of millions of dollars in the making of the movie and its marketing." - from drudge.

Good one!Headline seen at Yahoo News this morning: Al-Jazeera Calls on U.S. to Ensure Free Press.

Dibs The DickBush Oil Cartel/Repug National Committee United States will not cede control of Iraq to the United Nations if and when it overthrows Saddam Hussein, Colin Powell said on Wednesday. {"if"??}

"We didn't take on this huge burden with our coalition partners not to be able to have a significant dominating control over how it unfolds in the future," Powell told a House of Representatives subcommittee. "Besides, we were there first! It's ours! OURS!!"

"We would not support...essentially handing everything over to the U.N. for someone designated by the U.N. to suddenly become in charge of this whole operation," he added. "Unless the U.N. handed it over to someone like Halliburton or the Carlyle Group, of course." - link.

Russia slams US on Iraqi 'liberation' and warns against planting WMD 'evidence'Pootie-Poot: "I'm no poodle."

"Russia on Wednesday fired a new broadside against the United States over its military action against Iraq, scorning claims its troops were 'liberating' Iraqis and accusing it of defying world opinion. Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said 'What the United States is doing challenges not only Iraq, but the whole world. It is already becoming clear how far removed from reality are their attempts to present military action against Iraq as a triumphant march for the liberation of the Iraqi people with minimal casualties and destruction.'

'If there are claims by coalition forces about discovering weapons of mass destruction...only international inspectors can make a conclusive assessment of the origin of these weapons. No other evaluation and final conclusion can be accepted.' Ivanov's sharp attack, following President Vladimir Putin's fierce denunciation at the onset of U.S. military action on March 20, nonetheless marked another downturn in relations." - from here and democrats.com.

March 26, 2003

I say we rename it 'Duh-bya Day'"Rename April Fools Day for the French - if anyone's ever hung a Kick Me sign on your posterior or spiked your sugar bowl with salt, Paris is ultimately responsible - and they should pay."
The history of April Fools' Day - ABC News.

Unca Karl, kin ah go now?! Tony 'Piddles' Blair arrived in Washington about an hour ago for a war council with Smirky the Boil-faced Bungler, insisting the United Nations must play a central role in post-war Iraq, not just Chimpy 'n' Dick's pasty rethug oil cartel.

"Do not expect a whole lot of specifics to emerge from this," Blair told reporters on route. "After all, I will have to deal with idiotboy at some point." He headed to the residential retreat at Camp David immediately on arrival, hoping to get a start on filling out his application for a job at Halliburton. - link.

A truly decent man has diedFormer U.S. Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York died today, from complications following surgery. He was 76.

Foulmouthed bitch!I know, I know. I was never more aware of it than when I visited the BF's sister's family this past Saturday - a family with 2 toddlers, and pretty religious to boot. Not only were the typical 4-letter words out, but so was anything that could be regarded as blasphemous. My usual all-purpose curse, 'Jesus fucking Christ,' would have sent them screaming to the Valium, the confessional, and me straight to Hell. I thought my head was going to explode with the effort of not saying anything offensive. I guess I've been making up for it ever since.